On Tuesday, Jan. 10, at 8 p.m. CST Command and Control will air nationwide on Public Television.

The film from director Robert Kenner, based upon the book by Eric Schlosser, is the true story of a Titan II missile silo near Damascus, Arkansas. In September 1980 a technician dropped a socket and punctured a rocket upon which was mounted a five megaton nuclear warhead, initiating a near disaster.

A five megaton nuclear bomb is more powerful than all of the ordinance used in World War II, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Disaster was averted in Arkansas, but was it worth the risk?

While our president elect uses twitter to opine about nuclear weapons policy, our nuclear arsenal resides in real-world places subject to real world threats and, as depicted in Command and Control, to accidents.

On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will gain access to the codes to launch a nuclear attack within four minutes, at his own volition, without approval from anyone else.

For his part, outgoing President Obama launched a $1 trillion program to modernize our nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years.

One has to ask, shouldn’t we abolish nuclear weapons instead of modernizing them?

Nuclear weapons are scary things. Rather than reacting impulsively and superficially to a complex issue, Blog for Iowa recommends you learn about an accident with a nuclear weapon from this 92 minute film.